31/07/2024
Excellent post from the Custom House Visitor Centre on the history of the introduction of the Poor Law and the workhouses into Ireland. Today, the 31st July, marks the day when in 1838 the first universal legislation concerning care for the poor in Ireland was passed in the parliament at Westminster. It was to seal the destiny of thousands of Irish people for almost one hundred years.
Unbeknownst to most Irish people, the 31st July 1838 marked a fateful date in Irish history and also in the history of the Custom House. On this day, the first universal legislation concerning care for the poor in Ireland was passed in the parliament at Westminster. It was to seal the destiny of thousands of Irish people for almost one hundred years and for many it amounted to no less than a death sentence. In 1922 it was one of the first acts of Dáil Éireann to scrap this law and to send it to the rubbish heap of history where it belonged.
Since Elizabethan times up to 1838, it was the local Church of Ireland parish that was in charge of care for their poor. The Act for the Effectual Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland, as it was called officially, attempted to centralise poor relief in the hands of the Poor Law Commission, which took up headquarters inside the Custom House in 1847.
Unfortunately, the true purpose of this act was by no means help for the poor in Ireland, but to prevent them from going to England. The 1830s had seen a massive influx of destitute Irish looking for a better life on the other island. George Nicholls, the English Poor Law Commissioner and architect of the Irish Poor Law, said as much: “The British Government’s mind was made up. The property of Ireland must support the poverty of Ireland, and a menace to England be removed.”
The Irish Poor Law was modelled on the English Poor Law introduced four years previously, but it suffered from major flaws. First of all, the English Poor Law suited the social and economic situation in England and failed to take into account that the Irish situation was a completely different one which had to be addressed accordingly.
Daniel O’Connell pointed this out in a speech in Westminster arguing that poverty in Ireland was due to a lack of employment for which this law provided no adequate answer. Yet, rather doing a copy and paste-job, the Irish Poor Law forced a much harsher, more degrading and punishing life upon the Irish poor than on their English counterparts. Other than in England and Scotland, outdoor relief was precluded. Everybody looking for help had to enter a workhouse.
This meant, the poor were institutionalised in prison-like establishments, where conditions were such that many “inmates” had no chance of survival. They died in droves of contagious diseases, especially during the famine, when the workhouses were hopelessly overcrowded. At the peak of the famine, many distressed workhouses were unable to feed their inmates so that conditions of starvation existed as much inside as outside the workhouses. No matter how dreaded the workhouse, many saw no other alternative than to beg for admission, because the alternative was to die by the roadside.
All this was administered and supervised by the Poor Law Commission in The Custom House. Not the best legacy to have.
Aerial view, Irish Workhouse Centre, Portumna, Galway. Fáilte Ireland©
